Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Christians fleeing Lebanon

In the June issue of Christianity Today, David Aikman, a former senior correspondent for Time and regular columnist for CT, writes about the coming exodus of Lebanese Christians. The article is not online, but here is some of what Aikman had to say:

A little noticed but sad news item appeared in London's Daily Telegraph this past March. The report, based on secret Lebanese government information, said nearly half of the country's Maronite Christian community (22 percent of Lebanon's 3.8 million people) want to leave the country. Of these, 100,000 have already requested immigrant visas.

Since Israel's war last July with Hezbollah (a Shi'a Islamic militant organization), the trickle of Lebanese Christians fleeing the country has become a steady stream. Lebanon, once considered the Switzerland of the Middle East and the only Arabic-speaking country that ever had a Christian majority, is slowly bleeding to death.

Lebanon, which was ripped by civil war for 15 years ending in 1990, was a great experiment in Muslim-Christian co-governance, though the country has had no better relations with Israel than the Jewish state's other neighbors.

Changing the tune of this post, I have a short piece in the same CT about Evel Knievel taking possibly his final great leap -- this one of faith.